"Extraordinary Claims Require... Extraordinary Evidence" Dept.: Life On Venus? Maybe...

It is not really very likely that this is a smoking gun signature of life -- but there is too much phosphine in chemical signature traces taken over the amber clouds on Venus, to have been produced solely by volcanic activity.

Or, if it is volcanic, it implies that Venus sees over 200 times more volcanic-activity than Earth, per square mile. And, well. . . that seems pretty unlikely. So it is an increasingly tantalizing possibility -- that this is the signature of rudimentary single cell life -- in the amber clouds above that hot planet.

Even so, as Carl Sagan reminded us now almost 50 years ago -- such an extraordinary claim, should come bearing equally extraordinary. . . evidence, in its favor. And I am not sure this qualifies, just yet. Here's the latest from NPR:

. . . .The researchers have racked their brains trying to understand why this toxic gas, phosphine, is there in such quantities, but they can't think of any geologic or chemical explanation.

The mystery raises the astonishing possibility that Venus, the planet that comes closest to Earth as it whizzes around the sun, might have some kind of life flourishing more than 30 miles up in its yellow, hazy clouds.

Nothing could live on what passes for land on Venus; its smooth volcanic plains are a scorching hellscape hot enough to melt lead, where the temperatures exceed 800 degrees Fahrenheit. High in the clouds, however, the pressures and temperatures and acidity levels would be less intense — near room tempuratures, and Earth-like pressures. . . .

All of which may mean NASA/JPL will get a green light for the funding to fly robotic atmosphere probe missions, to Venus around 2026. Smiling at the third level central visits, elsewhere this afternoon. . . grinning ear to ear in fact. Stay safe, all -- near and far. . . .



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